Google’s Nexus 5 is the first Android phone to run the latest version of the mobile operating system, KitKat. But are the phone and the OS any sweeter? Walt Mossberg writes, “I like both, though neither is an especially bold leap forward in features.”

“Our business does not depend on collecting personal data,” Apple writes in a formal report on federal government data requests — the first such report published by a tech company in the wake of the Snowden/NSA scandal.

CEO Steve Ballmer is currently slated to still be on the software giant’s board when he steps down from the CEO post, and is one of its largest shareholders with a four percent stake. And despite what one analyst may want, those two things will only change “when pigs fly,” according to a Microsoft insider.

Brad Stone’s new book about Amazon and Jeff Bezos, “The Everything Store,” got a high-profile and very negative review — on Amazon, of course — from Bezos’s wife MacKenzie Bezos. But the company’s first employee, Shel Kaphan, fired back in his own review that the book is “as accurate as it is possible to be at this great a remove.”

With an assist from Nokia’s Lumia devices, Windows Phone has overtaken the iPhone … in Italy. It’s also rapidly gaining market share elsewhere, according to research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, but still lags far behind Android worldwide and iOS outside of Italy.

The biggest company in enterprise storage, EMC, has sued fast-moving upstart Pure Storage. Why? Because of an alleged “collusion with numerous former EMC employees” to steal trade secrets.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been aggressively pruning the company’s ranks of underperforming employees — a long overdue measure, some say — through a Quarterly Performance Review system. But now Yahoos are kvetching on an anonymous internal message board that the QPRs are punishing people who don’t deserve it.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131109/allthingsd-week-in-review-twitters-product-problem-and-ballmer-keeps-his-microsoft-shares/feed/0Apple Inks Major Sapphire Supply Deal With GT Advanced Technologieshttp://allthingsd.com/20131104/apple-inks-major-sapphire-supply-deal-with-gt-advanced-technologies/
http://allthingsd.com/20131104/apple-inks-major-sapphire-supply-deal-with-gt-advanced-technologies/#commentsMon, 04 Nov 2013 22:42:29 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=370405With sapphire now a critical piece of two important iPhone features — in the camera lens across the entire iPhone line and, for the iPhone 5s, in the device’s fingerprint recognition home button — Apple is securing a ready future supply of the material by building an Arizona facility to manufacture it.

On Monday, GT Advanced Technologies said it has inked a multi-year agreement with Apple to manufacture sapphire material in Mesa, Arizona. Under the terms of the agreement, GT will purchase and operate the sapphire production equipment that will ultimately be installed in the new Apple plant. In return, Apple is providing GT with prepayments of approximately $578 million, for which GT will reimburse Apple over five years, starting in 2015.

“We are proud to expand our domestic manufacturing initiative with a new facility in Arizona, creating more than 2,000 jobs in engineering, manufacturing and construction,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told AllThingsD. “This new plant will make components for Apple products and it will run on 100 percent renewable energy from day one.”

A big deal — in more ways than one. When the facility is up and running it will employ some 700 people, and it’s going to be cranking out a lot of sapphire. As part of the agreement, GT will fast-track development of a next-generation, large-capacity furnace intended to “deliver low-cost, high-volume manufacturing of sapphire material.” That suggests Apple could be looking at sapphire as an element in its next-generation touchscreens.

Domain and online services provider GoDaddy said it had acquired Boston-based Afternic, a seller of aftermarket domain names, from NameMedia. In addition, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company said it had acquired domain parking service SmartName, and also NameFind, a domain-name creator, from NameMedia. GoDaddy declined to reveal the terms of the deal, but it has been on a bit of an acquisition tear over the last year, as it seeks to strengthen its Web services to small businesses.

Also, for your watching pleasure, here are some funny new ads that GoDaddy just released, using action star Jean-Claude Van Damme in some very bendy ways with a, um, bongo drum, rather than its old practice of featuring underdressed women.

Go Daddy, the world’s biggest Web hosting and domain registration company, has hired former Yahoo Chief Product Officer and Microsoft exec Blake Irving to be its new CEO.

The privately-held Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company said Irving would start his new job on January 7 and will also join its board of directors. He is replacing Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’ Scott Wagner, who served as interim CEO since the summer, after Warren Adelman stepped down after only eight months on the job.

Private equity firm KKR is a major investor in Go Daddy, along with Silver Lake. The pair, as well as Technology Crossover Ventures, purchased a major stake in the company for $2.3 billion in a leveraged buyout in 2011. Go Daddy Executive Chairman and founder Bob Parsons — well known for being outspoken — also still holds a large percentage.

Go Daddy — which had sales of $1.3 billion in 2012 from fees from a wide variety of services offered to 11 million small business customers — is the largest registrar of Web sites, managing 54 million domains and hosting more than 5 million accounts. But it has been expanding the suite of services it offers.

“Go Daddy is an on-ramp for small business and I view it as a platform at tremendous scale for them,” said Irving in an interview yesterday, who noted he had 45 domains at Go Daddy himself. “There is a real vision here at further combining all these capabilities and opportunities here in the U.S. and internationally.”

For example, Go Daddy said that it recently bought Outright.com, a cloud-based financial management app, and also launched a mobile Web site-building tool.

Irving, as well as Wagner, underscored the global opportunities he intended to focus on. “If we move quickly, we can manage these opportunities into a bigger juggernaut,” he said, noting companies like Google, Intuit and others were also seeking to expand.

Currently, said Wagner, about one-third of customers added are internationally based and the business is about 25 percent of revenue, although most of the 3,400 Go Daddy employees are based in Arizona.

Go Daddy is not without its controversies — it has gotten dinged in recent years for its racy advertisements featuring scantily-clad women and also its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which it later pulled.

Irving was a longtime Microsoft exec, including heading its Windows Live platform. Most recently he served as Chief Product Officer at Yahoo, before resigning earlier this year under the regime of now-ousted CEO Scott Thompson. He is a graduate of San Diego State and got his MBA degree from Pepperdine University.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20121211/former-yahoo-exec-blake-irving-named-ceo-of-domain-giant-go-daddy/feed/0How Obama or Romney Should Have Answered the iPad Questionhttp://allthingsd.com/20121017/how-obama-or-romney-should-have-answered-the-ipad-question/
http://allthingsd.com/20121017/how-obama-or-romney-should-have-answered-the-ipad-question/#commentsWed, 17 Oct 2012 16:05:25 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=260948Toward the end of last night’s presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney, the moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley, asked a perfectly legitimate question, one that Obama himself is once reported to have asked a group of tech executives that included the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Essentially it was this: Why can’t iPhones and iPads be manufactured in the U.S.?

Crowley: Mr. President, we have a really short time for a quick discussion here. IPad, the Macs, the iPhones, they are all manufactured in China, and one of the major reasons is labor is so much cheaper [there]. How do you convince a great American company to bring that manufacturing back here?

The correct answer is that, under current conditions, which are highly unlikely to change no matter who is president, the job of assembling iPhones and iPads and other consumer electronics is now done mostly in China by companies that specialize in manufacturing, and will never come back to the U.S. And that’s okay.

Sadly, both Obama and Romney flubbed their answers, and educated voters not at all.

Romney made his response about how China is a currency manipulator and steals American intellectual property. Obama got started down the right path, correctly admitting that certain low-skilled jobs aren’t coming back, and mentioned “high-wage, high-skilled jobs.” But he failed to close the deal on his point. He then got off track talking about investing in research and training engineers. In part because the time was so short, neither delivered a clear correct answer about an issue that is widely and fundamentally misunderstood by most voters.

Here’s what one of them — either one, I don’t care which, and assuming no time limit — should have said in response:

“Candy, I understand how some people might get frustrated when they see Chinese workers assembling iPhones. It’s easy to think that those jobs rightly belong in America. The reality is a little more complex, but when you understand it, there’s a surprising amount of good news for American workers.

“The fact is, assembling iPhones and iPads is the final step of a complex process, and is really a low-skill, low-cost kind of job. China has spent decades building much of its economy around these low-skill jobs, in part because it has such a large labor force and plenty of workers who are willing to do the work. And, frankly, here in America you wouldn’t want to try to support a family on the kind of wages a job like that would pay. I know it sounds harsh, but it’s true. So I know this may sound odd when I say it, but I ask you to hear me out: I’m perfectly comfortable letting those kinds of jobs go to China or somewhere else.

“In fact, some researchers at the University of California at Berkeley found that for every iPad or iPhone manufactured, Chinese workers add $10 or less to the value of an iPad or iPhone. On an iPad, they found that American workers add $162 worth of value, and on an iPhone it was more than twice as much.

“In America, when we talk about manufacturing, we should be talking about advanced manufacturing jobs for highly skilled workers that require a solid education and pay wages on which you can support a family. And the fact is, there’s a lot of American work that goes into an iPad or an iPhone or a Mac.

“For one thing, there’s our semiconductor companies, like Intel, an American company that makes the most advanced and complex device ever created — the microprocessor — and that does it better than any other company in the world. It makes the primary brain that goes inside the Mac, most of the world’s personal computers and most of the servers that power the Internet. And most of those chips are made right here in California and Arizona and Oregon. Some are made in Israel, too. But most are made here in the U.S.A.

“And the microprocessors that go inside the iPad and the iPhone are made right here in America, too. Apple doesn’t make its own chips, and when it went looking for another company to help it do that, it picked a Korean company called Samsung. And where did Samsung decide to build these chips? Some place in Korea? No. The answer will surprise you: Texas. That’s right. Samsung operates one of its very biggest chip factories in Austin.

“Then there’s the shatter-resistant glass that you touch every time you use an iPhone or iPad. It was invented in America. And it’s made in America, too, by American workers at a company called Corning, in Kentucky and New York.

“And that’s just one piece of it. There are a lot of other great jobs held by American workers. Apple has a lot of smart designers who sweated over every little detail of how the iPad and iPhone look, and how they feel in your hand, and how the button works. Teams of software developers slowly, painstakingly designed and built and tweaked and refined the software that makes it so fun and useful.

“And we’re not done there. If you have an iPhone or an iPad, you have a favorite app. Right now, my favorite app is the one created by my campaign staff. And when I take a break on the campaign bus, my wife and I like to relax for a few minutes playing Words With Friends. She beats me every time. And how many apps are there? A million? A zillion? But that’s an example of another American company, Zynga, creating jobs for the people who create game software. And there are lots more Zyngas, some of them really small companies with just a few people, and some a lot bigger. Apple once counted, and said that there were more than 200,000 people working at jobs just making apps.

“And let’s not forget that just a little more than five years ago, this branch of the technology industry didn’t exist at all. Apple brought out the first iPhone in 2007, and the first apps started coming to the marketplace in 2008. And don’t get me started about Google and its Android phones and tablets, and the chips and software that go into those. Or Facebook, and all the interesting things it’s doing.

“So, to answer your question, Candy, I’m not terribly worried that American workers aren’t assembling iPhones and iPads in America. They’re busy doing more important jobs, and earning good wages doing it right here in America. And as president, I’ll do everything in my power to help encourage the creation of more jobs right here in America, and to encourage entrepreneurs to start new companies so they can create the next Apple or Google or Intel or Facebook.

“It’s something we in America do better than anyone else. And we can argue about the details of how we should go about doing that. My opponent and I have some strong differences of opinion on some of those things we might do, and you should learn about those differences and think long and hard about them, because they’re important. But, over the long term, when I look at the iPhone and the iPad, I see something that could only have happened in America. And I feel pretty good about the role the American worker plays in it. And so should you.

“Next question.”

=====Update: A few people have pointed out that President Obama in his response to Crowley’s question got off to a better start than I initially gave him credit for. However, I don’t think he quite closed the deal on the argument. Then, owing I think in part to the tight time constraints, he got off track. Either way, I’ve adjusted that lead-in paragraph above to reflect this.

For the sake of discussion I’ve added the text of the full exchange below.

CROWLEY: Mr. President, we have a really short time for a quick discussion here.
IPad, the Macs, the iPhones, they are all manufactured in China, and one of the major reasons is labor is so much cheaper [there]. How do you convince a great American company to bring that manufacturing back here?

ROMNEY: The answer is very straightforward. We can compete with anyone in the world as long as the playing field is level. China’s been cheating over the years, one, by holding down the value of their currency, number two, by stealing our intellectual property, our designs, our patents, our technology. There’s even an Apple store in China that’s a counterfeit Apple store selling counterfeit goods. They hack into our computers. We will have to have people play on a fair basis. That’s number one.

Number two, we have to make America the most attractive place for entrepreneurs, for people who want to expand a business. That’s what brings jobs in. The president’s characterization of my tax plan …

OBAMA: How much time you got, Candy?

ROMNEY: …. is completely … is completely false.

CROWLEY: Let me go to the president here, because we really are running out of time. And the question is can we ever get — we can’t get wages like that. It can’t be sustained here.

OBAMA: Candy, there are some jobs that are not going to come back, because they’re low-wage, low-skill jobs. I want high-wage, high-skill jobs. That’s why we have to emphasize manufacturing. That’s why we have to invest in advanced manufacturing. That’s why we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got the best science and research in the world.

And when we talk about deficits, if we’re adding to our deficit for tax cuts for folks who don’t need them and we’re cutting investments in research and science that will create the next Apple, create the next new innovation that will sell products around the world, we will lose that race. If we’re not training engineers to make sure that they are equipped here in this country, then companies won’t come here. Those investments are what’s going to help to make sure that we continue to lead this world economy not just next year, but 10 years from now, 50 years from now, a hundred years from now.

According to sources, former top Yahoo exec Hilary Schneider will be named president of LifeLock, which offers theft and fraud protection services to individual consumers and businesses.

The move — which is set to be announced soon, said sources — is an interesting one on a lot of levels.

First, the Tempe, Arizona-based LifeLock has just filed to go public at the end of August on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “LOCK.” The company — which is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins — seeks to raise $175 million in its IPO.

Obviously, bringing in Schneider adds an experienced public company exec to the team, which is headed by CEO and Chairman Todd Davis.

Perhaps more interestingly, it that it is a major shift in focus for Schneider — who left Yahoo in 2010 and has since been doing consulting work with TPG Capital on a wide range of digital companies.

She has largely been focused on online advertising in her career and was much recruited for a range of such opportunities after departing Yahoo. Instead, she chose to work at TPG, where she actually helped the powerful private equity firm think through a possible bid for Yahoo at one point.

Schneider left Yahoo after clashing with then-CEO Carol Bartz — Bartz was later fired — over a range of issues at the Silicon Valley Internet giant. Schneider had headed media and advertising sales there for its key U.S. division.

Before Yahoo, Schneider was a top exec at media giant Knight Ridder and, earlier, was CEO of Red Herring Communications and also CEO of Times Mirror Interactive. The Harvard Business School grad started her media career at the Baltimore Sun.

I am awaiting comment from LifeLock on the pending appointment.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120910/in-the-vault-former-yahoo-exec-hilary-schneider-set-to-join-ipo-bound-lifelock/feed/0The President of the United States Visits Intel Again (Video)http://allthingsd.com/20120126/the-president-of-the-united-states-visits-intel-again-video/
http://allthingsd.com/20120126/the-president-of-the-united-states-visits-intel-again-video/#commentsThu, 26 Jan 2012 23:10:13 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=167975The president of the United States loves Intel. A day after delivering his annual State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, President Obama paid the second visit of his presidency to an Intel facility, this one in Chandler, Arizona.

The first was last year in Hillsboro, Oregon, and during the visit, Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced that the new chip plant, or “fab” as they’re usually called, would be built in Arizona.

The main reason that Obama loves Intel is that it’s an example of the kind of manufacturing work that he’d like to see more of in America. As such, the sight of Intel spending $5 billion to build a new plant and adding 4,000 jobs is the sort of thing that any president would like to stand close to, especially at the onset of what looks to be a tough re-election campaign. It’s also one of those rare companies that’s riding high despite an uncertain global economy.

One thing Obama certainly didn’t mention was that Intel added plants in Israel and China in the last year as well. He’s also in no hurry to remind the audience that the chips that Intel makes will be shipped to China and inserted into computers and servers, many of which will be shipped into the United States.

We also learned this week from the New York Times, Obama seemed vaguely baffled by the notion that Apple’s iPhone is manufactured in China, and in a meeting in Silicon Valley last year asked Apple CEO Steve Jobs why they couldn’t be made in the U.S. Jobs’s answer, which is correct: Those jobs aren’t coming back. David Ricardo’s law of Comparative Advantage strikes again.

Anyway, the only video of the full speech that I’ve found came from the local TV station, ABC15, and thankfully they have made it embeddable.

In his remarks, the president is impressed both with the grand scale of things involved in building chips — he remembers seeing an electron microscope at Intel’s plant in Oregon that was powerful enough to display atoms, which is certainly impressive. In Chandler he’s impressed with what he says is the world’s largest land-based crane, which is being used in the construction effort. Enjoy the speech.

(Image is a screen grab from earlier in the video.)

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120126/the-president-of-the-united-states-visits-intel-again-video/feed/0U.K. Arrests Two More Suspected Members of LulzSechttp://allthingsd.com/20110902/uk-arrests-two-more-suspected-members-of-lulzsec/
http://allthingsd.com/20110902/uk-arrests-two-more-suspected-members-of-lulzsec/#commentsFri, 02 Sep 2011 13:30:29 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=116560
The summer that started out dominated by news of attacks by the hacker gang LulzSec/Anonymous is closing with news of more arrests of alleged members of the group by police in the U.K.

Scotland Yard says it has nabbed two more people that it says are members of the group; one of them is said to be connected to crimes committed under cover of the online identity “Kayla.”

In a statement, police did not release the names of the two men arrested. They are aged 20 and 24, and one comes from the town of Mexborough, while the other comes from Warminster. The arrests were conducted in cooperation with local police and the FBI. In one case, a home was searched and computer equipment taken.

It was the second pair of arrests in as many days. On Thursday, police arrested two others as part of the growing worldwide investigation into the activities of LulzSec and Anonymous.

And yet the hacker crimes continue, seemingly unabated. Anonymous has dubbed today “Texas Takedown Thursday” or #TTT on Twitter. The target: Law enforcement agencies in the state of Texas, in apparent retaliation for the arrests earlier this summer of 16 people said to be associated with Anonymous.

The group says it has leaked about three gigabytes worth of email and other data from private email accounts it says belong to certain police officials in Texas. It also claimed credit for defacing a Web site belonging to the Texas Police Chiefs Association.

It’s the second such targeting of police officers in a particular state. In June, the group went after the Arizona State Police, posting home addresses of officers.

LulzSec and Anonymous, in their various contortions, have had a busy summer. The group and its sympathizers started out making Sony’s existence miserable, on the heels of an attack on the PlayStation network; the attack brought the network down for several weeks.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110902/uk-arrests-two-more-suspected-members-of-lulzsec/feed/0Amazon Seeks Greater Fulfillment by Adding Distribution Centershttp://allthingsd.com/20110707/amazon-seeks-greater-fulfillment-by-adding-distribution-centers/
http://allthingsd.com/20110707/amazon-seeks-greater-fulfillment-by-adding-distribution-centers/#commentsThu, 07 Jul 2011 21:53:37 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=95382Amazon is expanding its warehouse capacity at an insanely aggressive pace, having already announced five new distribution centers so far this year, including two since yesterday.

The five new facilities will add about four million square feet of space and hire thousands of new employees.

But that’s just the beginning. The company has plans to expand even more as it adds more merchandise to its inventory and tries to speed shipping to meet the popularity of services like Amazon Prime.

In all, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant plans to add at least nine fulfillment centers this year, of which roughly half will be located in North America. If the company’s growth rates continue, it may end up building even more, execs disclosed during its last earnings call.

It is the second year in a row that Amazon has built out more capacity, having added 13 fulfillment centers in 2010. The company currently has fulfillment centers in Arizona, Delaware, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

Today, it announced it will build a fourth distribution center in Phoenix, spanning 1.2 million square feet, making a total of 4 million square feet in the state. For perspective, that’s the equivalent of nearly 70 football fields.

Yesterday, it said it was adding 900,000 square feet in Indiana.

Amazon hires thousands of full-time positions at these facilities, including roles in picking, packing and receiving, and shipping.

Amazon did not specify how many employees would be necessary at each location, but said for example that it was seeking 2,000 workers in Lexington County, S.C., and 2,700 in Hamilton County, Tenn. (not including 4,000 seasonal workers).

The company’s impressive growth was put into context earlier this year by Geekwire, which reported that Amazon had hired 4,200 employees in the first quarter to bring its total to 37,900.

While Amazon must build these facilities to keep up with demand, the investments are costing it significantly. In the first quarter, Amazon’s revenues jumped 38 percent, but net income fell by 33 percent compared to the year-ago period.

Still, it’s a price that must be paid. You can’t store everything in the cloud.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110707/amazon-seeks-greater-fulfillment-by-adding-distribution-centers/feed/0Arizona Confirms LulzSec Docs Are Authentic, Worries About Officer Safetyhttp://allthingsd.com/20110624/arizona-confirms-lulzsec-docs-are-authentic-worries-about-officer-safety/
http://allthingsd.com/20110624/arizona-confirms-lulzsec-docs-are-authentic-worries-about-officer-safety/#commentsFri, 24 Jun 2011 12:30:38 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=90718Officials in Arizona have confirmed that the documents dumped by the hacker group LulzSec are authentic. They also say they’re concerned that the release of personal information about some officers could compromise their safety.

Steve Harrison, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety told Dow Jones Newswires last night that the documents appear to be the real deal, and that the hacker group probably penetrated the email accounts of as many as eight officers, obtaining the names of spouses, mobile phone numbers and home addresses.

State cops condemned the release, speaking this morning through the Arizona Highway Patrol Association. “Law enforcement officials go to many lengths to protect their identities,” said AHPA president Jimmy Chavez. “These individuals maliciously released confidential information knowing the safety of DPS employees, and their families, would be compromised. A threat to release more DPS files demonstrates how heinous the hackers are willing to act. The AHPA would like to see the people brought to justice and prosecuted to the highest degree of the law.”

LulzSec, having pivoted from attacking Sony and other video game companies to suddenly making grander politically-motivated gestures, singled out the agency because of LulzSec’s opposition to SB-1070, a controversial piece of legislation in Arizona that would require people to carry proof with them at all times that they’re in the U.S. legally, in case they’re stopped by police. The legislation also gives police a lot of latitude in stopping people they suspect of being illegal aliens, which critics of the law say encourages racial profiling. It also seeks to crack down on people helping illegal aliens by giving them shelter, work or transportation. It’s currently the subject of a federal lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.

The AZDPS Web site appears to be down this morning as its IT crew combs through its system to assess the damage. The Arizona Republic reports that Gov. Jan Brewer has been briefed on the incident. The agency says that no information that would compromise a current investigation was part of the leak.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110624/arizona-confirms-lulzsec-docs-are-authentic-worries-about-officer-safety/feed/0LulzSec Goes All Wikileaks on Arizona State Copshttp://allthingsd.com/20110623/lulzsec-goes-all-wikileaks-on-arizona-state-cops/
http://allthingsd.com/20110623/lulzsec-goes-all-wikileaks-on-arizona-state-cops/#commentsFri, 24 Jun 2011 00:59:01 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=90620The increasingly brash hacker group LulzSec released what it says is only the first of many “payloads” to the Internet today: A cache of documents taken from servers belonging to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

The release, some 446 megabytes of documents that are considered sensitive, is intended, the group says, as a retaliation for a controversial Arizona state law that makes it legal for police officers to question anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. The documents were released via the BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay. More such releases are coming, LulzSec said.

“We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial-profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona,” the group said in its latest statement.

LulzSec had been promising that it would release its first Payload on Friday; it was announced on Twitter not long after midnight London time. Their typical pattern suggests they’re active during the night and early morning hours U.K. time, making the fact that Scotland Yard arrested a 19-year old linked to the group all the more interesting.

The release followed a day during which a rival group claimed to have attacked and defaced a Web site said to belong to a LulzSec member. The other group of hackers, calling itself TeaMp0isoN — or, in English, Team Poison — a group with a long history of defacing Web sites going back to mid-2009. Fox News managed to interview someone with that group, who called LulzSec a bunch of “script kiddies,” an epithet meant to convey the idea that for all the media attention it has attracted in recent weeks, LulzSec’s actual hacking skills aren’t terribly impressive.

The group defaced a Web site belonging to someone in the Netherlands they say is a member of LulzSec and are on a campaign to name LulzSec members and out them to police. As always, their claims are impossible to vet. But they do suggest that all the media noise that LulzSec is making is starting to grate on other members of the so-called hacker underground. Team Poison isn’t the first to express such sentiment. A group calling itself Web Ninjas has sought to expose the people it says are LulzSec members. And another possibly connected person or group tried to do the same thing before that, and even claimed an arrest that hadn’t occurred.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110623/lulzsec-goes-all-wikileaks-on-arizona-state-cops/feed/0Video: Obama Visits Intel in Oregon, and a Silicon Lovefest Ensueshttp://allthingsd.com/20110218/video-obama-visit-intel-in-oregon-and-a-silicon-lovefest-ensues/
http://allthingsd.com/20110218/video-obama-visit-intel-in-oregon-and-a-silicon-lovefest-ensues/#commentsFri, 18 Feb 2011 23:00:41 +0000http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=3474While there’s no sign yet of a photo of the leader of the free world in a bunny suit (This shot of John Kerry in a similar getup while on a visit to NASA may have something to do with it), this native Oregonian can’t help but feel the flutter of native pride over President Obama’s visit to Intel’s plant in Hillsboro Oregon today.

Earlier in the day Intel CEO Paul Otellini agreed to join the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which is chaired by General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Otellini announced some more good news: Plans to build a new $5 billion-plus chip factory in Arizona and hire 4,000 workers there. (Yay, America…meanwhile Oregon still gets D1X) The text of Otellini’s prepared remarks is below the video.

What a difference a year makes. At this time last year, Intel was preparing to defend itself against an antitrust lawsuit brought by Obama’s Federal Trade Commission. A settlement last August brought an end to that. Now Obama and Intel totally heart each other, as you can see in the video below, shot by The Oregonian.

The visit followed last night’s dinner at the home of venture capitalist John Doerr with numerous Silicon Valley execs, where POTUS sat between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Remarks (as prepared) by Paul Otellini, President and CEO of Intel Corporation, during President Obama’s visit to Intel’s campus in Hillsboro, Ore., on Feb. 18, 2011.

Good morning and welcome. And Governor Kitzhaber, thank you for being here. I’m excited to be here today to celebrate American innovation and American manufacturing.

Our country and this company have been built on innovation – and manufacturing has been at the heart of America’s economy for over a century. Technology and the semiconductor industry have been driving economic growth for the last 50 years. In fact, when averaged over the last 5 years, the semiconductor industry is the nation’s #1 exporter.
Today we celebrate the construction of Intel’s new semiconductor manufacturing plant called D1X.

For the past 2 years I have been discussing the need to re-ignite innovation in the U.S as a means of creating jobs and wealth in our society.

I believe the world of technology and a vibrant manufacturing base lies at the heart of creating this future. This is one of the reasons for our continued investment in Oregon, and our commitment to build Fab D1X.

This new factory will play a central role extending Intel’s unquestioned leadership in semiconductor manufacturing. The transistors and chips it will produce will be the most dynamic platform for innovation that our company has ever created.

Together they will enable more capable computers, the most advanced consumer electronics and mobile devices, the brains inside the next generation of robotics, and thousands of other applications that have yet to be invented.
I’d like to pause for a moment to give you a glimpse of what will be involved in creating such a technologically advanced operation.

D1X will be a vital addition to what is already one of the largest and most advanced semiconductor research and manufacturing sites in the world. Building it we will create approximately 3,000 construction jobs over 2 years. The structure will require 19 tons of steel, 40 miles of pipe, and 13,000 truckloads of cement. When finished, D1X will have a cleanroom as big as 4 football fields. It is scheduled for start-up in 2013; and it will be the first 14-nanometer microprocessor factory in the world.

Intel is a global company today, and proudly so. Yet, we think of ourselves as an American enterprise. Intel generates three-fourths of its revenues overseas, yet maintains three-fourths of its manufacturing here in the United States. The company sets the bar for world-class manufacturing around the world.

We believe in this country’s power to create a future where America maintains its unparalleled global leadership and where jobs in 21st century industries are created and flourish. I am pleased that the President and his Administration have taken a number of steps to invest in innovation and education so that we are building the skills needed to achieve success in the 21st century and grow the economy. At Intel, we believe that we will help create this future.

Building such a future requires more than just investments in technology and manufacturing. We need to also invest in educating and training the workers that will invent and manage the industries of the future. At Intel, for example, over half of our 82,000-person workforce has technical degrees and nearly 8,000 hold a Master’s degree or Ph.D. Looking forward, we are concerned that there may be a shortfall of qualified experts in science and math in this country to meet the needs of our industry.

There are two fundamental solutions to this problem. First, revitalizing math and science education will generate qualified, interested and motivated students, and drive increased enrollments in our great graduate schools. Then, government and businesses need to make sure all of these graduates are given an opportunity to work in this great country.

I want to commend the President for his leadership and focus on improving our science, technology, engineering and math education. He has taken actions — including key steps like making STEM a priority — in his $4 billion Race to the Top competition and his Educate to Innovate campaign.

I’m proud to tell you that over the last decade, Intel has invested nearly $1 billion in education around the world, especially math and science education. Our Intel Teach program has already trained more than 9 million teachers worldwide — with nearly half a million right here in the in the U.S. — to integrate technology into and the learning process. The result is improved critical thinking and problem solving skills. We view these efforts — and our many other education initiatives — as vital investments in the next innovators, thinkers, scientists, and entrepreneurs.

This investment comes full circle when we can then hire the people we are investing in.

I’m proud to announce that this year Intel will hire 4,000 new permanent, highly skilled employees in the U.S. above and beyond the factory jobs that I previously mentioned.

These new employees will focus on areas that span the exploration of new materials to create even smaller transistors, to products that we believe will transform the way that healthcare and education are delivered, to “future technologies” that involve augmented reality and computers that can read minds, or at least anticipate your needs!

The investments I’ve discussed today are long-term investments in the things that make innovation possible. They also send a clear message that the United States will remain the location for Intel’s most advanced technology development and manufacturing.

And, I’ve saved the best news for last.

I’m happy to announce another NEW multi-billion dollar investment in America. Intel will soon begin construction in Arizona on a greater than $5 billion manufacturing facility called Fab 42 that will focus on 14-nm silicon process technology and beyond. When completed, Fab 42 will be THE most advanced high-volume semiconductor factory in the world. This activity will create thousands of construction and permanent manufacturing jobs in this country above and beyond what I’ve described earlier.

My closing message is that the best way forward for us is to unleash the unmatched creative energies of the people of this country to transform our manufacturing base for the 21st century. Intel is proud to do its part to create this promising future.

With that, ladies and gentleman, I’m pleased to introduce the President of the United States.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110218/video-obama-visit-intel-in-oregon-and-a-silicon-lovefest-ensues/feed/1Ring, Ring. Hi, It's Googlehttp://allthingsd.com/20101223/ring-ring-hi-its-google/
http://allthingsd.com/20101223/ring-ring-hi-its-google/#commentsFri, 24 Dec 2010 05:33:58 +0000http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=34374Google Inc., which helped popularize the idea of automated ad sales on the Web, has been quietly turning to an old-fashioned tool–phone calls–to compete in the hot market for local business advertising.

The Internet-search giant this year has hired several hundred sales representatives to call U.S. businesses such as spas, restaurants and hotels to promote new advertising initiatives, people familiar with the matter said. The effort includes an office in Tempe, Ariz., with around 100 sales representatives, one of these people said.

Since 20% of searches done on Google are for local information, “a strong Web presence can help neighborhood businesses answer those searches and bring in more customers,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of geographic and local services, in a prepared statement. Google’s new local ad offerings “are simple and they work, so we’ve been investing in marketing and sales to support them.”

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20101223/ring-ring-hi-its-google/feed/0New Library Technologies Dispense With Librarianshttp://allthingsd.com/20101025/new-library-technologies-dispense-with-librarians/
http://allthingsd.com/20101025/new-library-technologies-dispense-with-librarians/#commentsMon, 25 Oct 2010 13:45:14 +0000http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=31496Hugo MN–In this suburb of St. Paul, the new library branch has no librarians, no card catalog and no comfortable chairs in which to curl up and read.

Instead, the Library Express is a stack of metal lockers outside city hall. When patrons want a book or DVD, they order it online and pick it up from a digitally locked, glove-compartment- sized cubby a few days later. It’s a library as conceived by the Amazon.com generation.

Faced with layoffs and budget cuts, or simply looking for ways to expand their reach, libraries around the country are replacing traditional, full-service institutions with devices and approaches that may be redefining what it means to have a library.

Later this year Mesa, Ariz., plans to open a new “express” library in a strip-mall, open three days a week, with outdoor kiosks to dispense books and DVDs at all hours of the day. Palm Harbor, Fla., meanwhile, has offset the impact of reduced hours by installing glass-front vending machines that dispense DVDs and popular books.

The wave of innovation is aided by companies that have created new machines designed to help libraries save on labor. For instance, Evanced Solutions, an Indianapolis company that makes library software, this month is starting test trials of a new vending machine it plans to start selling early next year.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20101025/new-library-technologies-dispense-with-librarians/feed/0Are "Sext" Messages a Teenage Felony or Folly?http://allthingsd.com/20100825/are-sext-messages-a-teenage-felony-or-folly/
http://allthingsd.com/20100825/are-sext-messages-a-teenage-felony-or-folly/#commentsWed, 25 Aug 2010 12:00:23 +0000http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=28739State lawmakers around the U.S. are struggling to decide if teenage “sexting”—the practice of sending nude or sexually suggestive photos by cellphone—is a serious crime, or juvenile folly run amok.

About 20 states have enacted or proposed measures that deal with teenage sexters. Generally, the legislation is aimed at treating minors in a more lenient fashion than if they were prosecuted under existing child-pornography or child-exploitation laws, which include the possibility of prison time and sex-offender status.

Since May, states including Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana and Illinois have enacted laws that impose relatively modest penalties against minors who sext, while maintaining harsher penalties for adult offenders.

While many of the new rules make sexting punishable by small fines and short stints in a juvenile-detention facility, there is still little agreement on what the appropriate penalty is—or whether prosecutors should be involved at all.

BoomTown loves political dynasties from any party with about as much enthusiasm as I have for tossing sheep on Facebook.

Which is to say, none at all.

Nonetheless, it was an odd blast from the past to see this offspring spring into the public eye–as in Ben Quayle, former VP Dan Quayle’s son, who is running for Congress in Arizona.

Here is a somewhat awkward campaign video by Quayle the younger, in which the candidate declares he is going to beat up Washington, D.C. and then walks right off at the end like he is heading there immediately, just as he is approving the ad:

Talk about good timing–Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming “Mexploitation” movie, “Machete,” centers on Mexican immigrants and the border, a perfect flashpoint for the controversial and appalling new immigration-related search laws passed by Arizona recently.

Director Rodriguez used the opportunity yesterday of Cinco de Mayo to release an anti-Arizona promo for the film, which had its origins as a fake trailer in his previous work, “Grindhouse.”

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20100420/richard-rosenblatt-at-d8/feed/0Will the Web Save the Radio Star?http://allthingsd.com/20100324/will-the-web-save-the-radio-star/
http://allthingsd.com/20100324/will-the-web-save-the-radio-star/#commentsWed, 24 Mar 2010 17:30:26 +0000http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=17732Is radio making a comeback?

Hard to believe, but advisory firm BIA/Kelsey says the battered industry will see revenue bump up slightly this year following years of decline–and will keep growing after that. Kelsey projects that U.S. revenue will grow 1.5 percent this year and another two to four percent each following year (click chart below to enlarge).

Kelsey is vague about what’s driving that growth. But the firm seems to peg a lot of growth on the Web’s ability to generate ad revenue.

I’m skeptical, because I’ve been hearing about online radio’s advertising opportunities for a long time, but it’s still a tiny business. A more conventional assumption is that the Web, which offers listeners unlimited choice without offering broadcasters a lot of revenue, will continue to undermine the radio business.

But let’s be fair and balanced here. Two anecdotal data points in favor of Kelsey’s online-is-on-the-move argument:

An attendee from Allen & Co.’s recent off-the-record digital media confab in Arizona tells me that the talk of the conference wasn’t Zynga, Demand Media or any of the other obvious suspects. It was Pandora, the online radio service that was supposed to be near death just a year ago. Now the company may be on track for $100 million in revenue this year, and a possible IPO.

At a Billboard conference panel this month, David Goodman, who runs the digital group for CBS’s (CBS) radio unit, boasted about booming ad sales and said that digital now makes up five percent of the company’s revenue. However, when I asked him repeatedly if his group is turning a profit, he demurred.

This week: We we had a Skype visit with, asked some questions of and gathered a few pertinent stats about Harold Smith IV and OWLE: Optical Widget for Life Enhancement, a superbeefy accessory for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone that attempts to bridge the gap between a camera on a phone and professional camcorder.

Who: Harold Smith IV

What: CEO and co-founder

Why: After early prototypes and iPhoneDevCamp, Harold patented a product that uses off-the-shelf lenses and microphones coupled with nearly a pound of custom-machined aluminum to stabilize and supercharge videos taken by iPhones. Harold and his team just finished churning out the first 500 OWLE Bubos (Bubo is the model name), which shipped at the end of 2009.

Who else: A Japanese company called Factron makes a case, called Quattro, with detachable lenses, although similarities are thin. The OWLE is a one-of-a-kind product at this point, but Harold sees competition on the horizon as video apps improve.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: I worked at Taste of Chicago, a hot dog shop. I guess it was my first experience in the truth of what goes on behind the scenes at a restaurant. This one day, I spilled a bucket of diced tomatoes on the floor, and my manager just kicked them back into the bucket and put it back on the counter. I didn’t last very long.

Has a Geek Crush On: Jim Jannard, he founded Red, the digital cinema camera company. Basically, he just saw a need and a product that didn’t exist yet and he just made it. That’s basically what we are trying to do.

Gadget of the Moment: You are gonna laugh because it’s so simple. I got this iPhone battery from Tumi for Christmas. It’s great. It holds five full charges and recharges the phone in two hours.

Wishes There Was an App For: Well, I really want to have more control over iPhone video. There’s no reason why we can’t have control over white balance, selective focus and everything. I mean, it’s all digital, and we have the tools. Truthfully though, I’d really love to play Halo on my iPhone in augmented reality. That’s coming.

Fails At: Spelling and grammar. I rely on the Internet to fix my mistakes. I think it would be the greatest prank ever to turn off all the spelling and grammar check in the world for one day to see how we all really type.

Bio in 140 Characters

Split his early years between Scottsdale and San Francisco. Couldn’t decide on a college major. Sold software, sold vitamins, invented OWLE.

The Five Questions

Give us the short history of how you decided the iPhone needed to be better at shooting video.

It all started with my day job at Natural Partners, a vitamin distribution company. They wanted to use video to reach customers in a way that competitors weren’t, so they started doing a Web TV show. We got into broadcasting trade shows live and wanted a mobile camera. The Nokia (NOK) N95 had just come out and Qik [online mobile streaming service] was around. I ended up building a rig to make live broadcasting with the N95 better. It just looked awful, all brackets and tape. When the iPhone came out, it was so thin and nice, I wanted to build something nice for it. That was the first OWLE prototype.

What exactly is the OWLE now?

Well, the OWLE Bubo is the current model. It is a custom-machined piece of billet aluminum, anodized black. We tried a lot of different sizes, and we settled on a version that weighs 0.9 pounds. You want it to be heavy enough so that you get stability without being a pain to carry around. The second component is the lens that it comes with. The body itself has 37-millimeter threading, the largest standard when it comes to camcorder lenses. These are things you can get at Best Buy (BBY) as add-ons for your camcorder. The lens even comes in two parts, and the first stage can be used alone for close-up shots. It also has an add-on microphone from Vericorder, so that you can hear what’s going on in front of the phone while it’s in the OWLE. You get the whole thing for $129.99.

Where do you hope people will be seeing these for sale in the future?

Well, we just launched a new Web site last week, and we are already filling orders from that. Right now, we are based out of a distribution center in Scottsdale, so we are filling orders ourselves today, but we could ramp up very quickly to larger order fulfillment. In my last job, I was running a $6-million-a-year e-commerce site, so when we are ready to ramp up, that’s my world, I’m ready for that.

We just struck a deal with ThinkGeek.com, so you can buy an OWLE there right now. Nothing is official yet, but we are currently in talks with Apple about selling OWLEs in Apple stores. That would be the dream location, I guess.

Picard or Kirk?

Picard for sure, I mean that’s what I grew up on–that was the touchscreen stuff. That was my first real exposure to touchscreens and HD video. It wasn’t shot in HD or anything, but Captain Picard would stand there, and there was that huge screen in full quality with a Klingon on it or something. We were there watching it on our little CRT televisions. That was the future. That’s what I thought when I first got an iPhone. I mean, it was a tricorder, that was “Star Trek.” I’m still waiting for my transporter.

What’s the OWLE story that beats them all?

Well, we just got this video from our marketing team–I’m not sure we’re going to release it. It’s basically of the team taking an OWLE Bubo with an iPhone inside and throwing it off a building like five times. The iPhone was, like, totally fine, but we don’t want to endorse people chucking their iPhones like that.

Evidently, McCain views such rules, which would require Internet service providers to treat all Web traffic equally, as “onerous federal regulation” at best and, at worst, another one of those “government takeovers.”

“The [Obama] administration can’t resist imposing regulations on the Internet–particularly since Google Inc. and other Internet content providers were promised the imposition of such regulations as these companies seek to control what consumers see and don’t see on the Internet–despite the fact that these regulations will only serve to hurt consumers,” McCain wrote in an op ed in the Washington Times.

“The wireless industry exploded over the past 20 years, in part due to limited government regulation. Wireless carriers invested $100 billion in infrastructure and development over the past three years, which has led to faster networks, more competitors in the marketplace and lower prices in the United States compared to any other country….Regulation kills innovation. Let’s not kill the Internet.”

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20091023/mccain-gets-mavericky-on-net-neutrality/feed/2You Can Lose Your Mind, When Tech Stores Are Two of a Kind: Welcome to the Appl…Oops, Microsoft Store (The Video Proof)http://allthingsd.com/20091022/you-can-lose-your-mind-when-tech-stores-are-two-of-a-kind-welcome-to-the-appl-oop-microsoft-store-the-video/
http://allthingsd.com/20091022/you-can-lose-your-mind-when-tech-stores-are-two-of-a-kind-welcome-to-the-appl-oop-microsoft-store-the-video/#commentsFri, 23 Oct 2009 00:11:37 +0000http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19814

A gauntlet of wildly cheering sales people dressed in brightly colored T-shirts, a sleek, white store, a simple but deceptively elegant design.

You will be excused for thinking this video below is from an Apple (AAPL) store. But, it is actually from the opening of a Microsoft (MSFT) Store in Scottsdale, Ariz., today.

Still, they’re cousins,
Identical cousins and you’ll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike.
You can lose your mind,
When cousins are two of a kind.

Microsoft’s last foray into the retail space–a store called microsoftSF in San Francisco–was a failure and closed after two years in 2001, but this looks promising at least.

Here’s the video–done by someone who has clearly studied BoomTown’s shaky style carefully–which is on the Microsoft Store’s channel on Google (GOOG) video site YouTube.

Below it is a similar-looking video from the opening of an Apple store in Boston, Mass. last year (plus the genius opening of “The Patty Duke Show”):

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20091022/you-can-lose-your-mind-when-tech-stores-are-two-of-a-kind-welcome-to-the-appl-oop-microsoft-store-the-video/feed/2From the Department of I Can Hardly Wait: A Sneak Peek of the New Microsoft Storehttp://allthingsd.com/20090807/from-the-department-of-i-can-hardly-wait-a-sneak-peek-of-the-new-microsoft-store/
http://allthingsd.com/20090807/from-the-department-of-i-can-hardly-wait-a-sneak-peek-of-the-new-microsoft-store/#commentsSat, 08 Aug 2009 00:50:56 +0000http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17166Today, Microsoft (MSFT) tweeted a photo of the wall in front of one of its upcoming retail stores, either in Scottsdale, Ariz., or Mission Viejo, Calif.

You can see it below, as well as the Twitter post, although it is not clear which location it is.

Frankly, those mall potted plants could be just about anywhere–I am guessing some Foot Locker is right around the corner and an Outback Steakhouse is not far either.

This does not bode well if the software giant is hoping to one-up the sleek and hip Apple (AAPL) store vibe.

In fact, that’s where BoomTown is off to now, to nab an early place in line for an iTablet.

(Click on the images to make them larger.)

(By the way, Microsoft made one failed foray into retail many years ago in San Francisco, which you can read about here.)

Both President- Elect Barack Obama and the man he beat in an historic election, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, gave the kinds of speeches at the end of last night that make one proud to be part of a country where stark differences still can mean grace can prevail when it's all over.

But don't take my word for it--the Internet makes it possible to consider them again and again.

Thus, here is a video of McCain's concession speech (try hard to ignore the inane booing at the start by some very sore losers in the crowd at the Biltmore Hotel in Arizona, which McCain quickly tamped down), as well as Obama's appropriately calm victory speech in Chicago below it.

They serve as perfect bookends to each other and is an amazing example of how to fight hard without killing each other, which is--in this fractious world--still a modern miracle.

Or as Obama quoted our greatest president (in my estimation, at least), Abraham Lincoln: "We are not enemies, but friends, though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."